Turtle (way of warrior) - who speaks for wolf? Long reply

[Michael Herman]

thanks for your message(s) paul.   a few comments, though...

you wrote:
<<Asking all the possible questions
as a means for discovery.  Openly questioning the Convention Wisdom of
this
listserv that is heavily weighted to those who expect a loving response
to
sway Mr. bin Laden and his murdering followers.  >>

i'm not sure that all of the people who advocate non-violence
necessarily expect or desire a 'loving response.'  the real question is
how much damage, how many more innocent lives are we willing to
sacrifice in order to be sure that we succeed in preventing those who
did this from doing something  more.  we're all out here talking this up
without any real idea of what is required to actually get/stop these
guys.

what's more, we don't really know how many guys have to be gotten, or at
least we in the general public do not seem to know.  and then we don't
know at all that if we manage to use enough force to stop those folks,
that it's not *so* much force that it actually serves to create a whole
new crop of those murderous ones.

next, the logic that kelly/orwell put forward is partial.  the claim is
that if we do not attack militarily, the terrorists will kill again.
well the other part of that is that if we *do* attack militarily they
will also kill again.  to the extent that we are able to improve
domestic security, financial system constraints and our international
relationships with islamic people everywhere, we will make it harder for
them to attack successfully.  they will attack either way, but the less
force and more pressure of other kinds that we are able to use, the more
and more help we will have around the world to prevent their attacks.

i'm not against stopping these guys, but i am against doing it in a way
that strengthens their movement, which large-scale military responses
seeem certain to do.  they chose a game of violence.  it's their game
because they can win it.  we need to change the game.  carpet-bombing
with food, for example, seems to hold the possibility of speaking
directly to the afghani people, serving their needs, subverting the
taliban, intimidating the taliban with our military presence in ways
that help not hurt local innocents.

my assumption/concern is that the military response cannot be effective
in stopping these guys -- until it becomes a very large affair indeed.
when we cross the 'oh my god' threshold, we will lose all kinds of
supporters here and abroad.  AND, when we cross that threshold, they
will gain all kinds of new recruits willing to die to avenge what we've
just done to them.   i do not think of myself as a pacifist, but i do
not want any kind of military response that targets *anyone* other than
those who must be stopped.  since this can't be done, i believe any more
aggressive attacks will only serve to make us weaker and them stronger.

we must be smarter.  we must change the game.  must make it financial.
must make it political.  must make in anything other than violence.  our
freedom is their terror.  our freedom fight is their terrorism.  we
can't win the terror game.  so our response has to be so much more
skillful than traditional military.  it has to be a game we can win.

michael



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Michael Herman
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